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The ordering principle is twofold; there is the principle
known to us as the Demiurge and there is the Soul of the All; we
apply the appellation "Zeus" sometimes to the Demiurge and
sometimes to the principle conducting the universe.
When under the name of Zeus we are considering the Demiurge we
must leave out all notions of stage and progress, and recognize
one unchanging and timeless life.
But the life in the kosmos, the life which carries the leading
principle of the universe, still needs elucidation; does it
operate without calculation, without searching into what ought to
be done?
Yes: for what must be stands shaped before the kosmos, and is
ordered without any setting in order: the ordered things are
merely the things that come to be; and the principle that brings
them into being is Order itself; this production is an act of a
soul linked with an unchangeably established wisdom whose
reflection in that soul is Order. It is an unchanging wisdom, and
there can therefore be no changing in the soul which mirrors it,
not sometimes turned towards it, and sometimes away from it- and
in doubt because it has turned away- but an unremitting soul
performing an unvarying task.
The leading principle of the universe is a unity- and one that is
sovereign without break, not sometimes dominant and sometimes
dominated. What source is there for any such multiplicity of
leading principles as might result in contest and hesitation? And
this governing unity must always desire the one thing: what could
bring it to wish now for this and now for that, to its own
greater perplexing? But observe: no perplexity need follow upon
any development of this soul essentially a unity. The All stands
a multiple thing no doubt, having parts, and parts dashing with
parts, but that does not imply that it need be in doubt as to its
conduct: that soul does not take its essence from its ultimates
or from its parts, but from the Primals; it has its source in the
First and thence, along an unhindered path, it flows into a total
of things, conferring grace, and, because it remains one same
thing occupied in one task, dominating. To suppose it pursuing
one new object after another is to raise the question whence that
novelty comes into being; the soul, besides, would be in doubt as
to its action; its very work, the kosmos, would be the less well
done by reason of the hesitancy which such calculations would
entail.
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